


A Leap Of Faith

by DarthGarou



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Suicide, Terrifying Tolkien Week, vague mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-22 20:38:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12490368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthGarou/pseuds/DarthGarou
Summary: Maedhros' journey to his end.





	A Leap Of Faith

**Author's Note:**

> Lo and behold, my first entry for the Terrifying Tolkien Week. Today’s topic is “all shall fade.”

Everything hurts. The skin of his left hand has burned off and the smell of his own charred flesh begins filling his nose. Maedhros doesn’t mind, as both the stench and the agony keep his mind off the gaping chasm in his spirit.

He lifts his gaze to the tall mountain crowned with thick smoke. It quakes beneath his feet and takes a rumbling breath before wreathing its crown with more ashen clouds. A lightning licks at their edges.

_ The Enemy stood before him tall and proud - taller and prouder than it had any right to be - with the Silmarils shining brilliantly atop its head, trapped within an ashen mist that swirled around the Enemy’s head like a crown of serpents. _

_ Maedhros moved to approach it and in doing so, noticed the parties of Orcs arrayed in the shadows and waiting to strike. Before he could signal his own troops, they were upon them like rabid beasts.  _

_ But they held against them in spite of their despair, and seeing the Orcs drop like flies, the Enemy called forth the shadow and flame. Their footsteps shook the ground and their fiery whips crackled through the air before wrapping around the Elves’ extremities. _

_ As they squirmed in their binds and snarled at their captors like wounded beasts, the Enemy looked them over. Five remained along with Maedhros. _

_ But it paid them no mind; the Enemy strode over to Maedhros, its footsteps cracking the ground beneath. Defiant, he looked up to meet its gaze. The pair of abyssal eyes pulled him into the Void, cold and lightless and too vast to ever be comprehended by an Incarnate mind. Maedhros stilled in horror of what awaited him should he fail to fulfill the Oath. _

_ With a smug grin, the Enemy gestured to the rest of the captives. “Kill them.” It spared Maedhros a meaningful look. “But take the prince with us to Angband.” _

Shuddering at the memory, Maedhros begins to climb up the slope and towards the volcano’s crater. He tries not to sink into wishing the Enemy had killed him right then and there, so he looks up and towards his destination.

As if to tempt him, the mountain roars and shudders through an explosion, dying the sky with crimson curls.

_ He was the last one to leave the house after having packed. Before he could get out of the door, a strong hand wrapped around his wrist and stayed him. His mother took a shaky breath and tugged at his arm a little, demanding he turn to face her. _

_ Maedhros did so with sorrow etched into his heart.  _

_ “Do not go, Maitimo,” she said. Her voice was firm, but her hands trembled even as she tightened her grip on his wrist. Maedhros could see the tears gathering in her eyes. _

_ “It is my duty,” he told her, his voice ringing hollow even to his own ears. _

_ “Is it?” she asked bitterly. She let go of his wrist and dug her fingers into the freckled skin of her forearms, trying to reign in her quivering. “Is the duty to your father greater than the duty to your mother?” A tear slid down her cheek, then another. “Is it your duty to follow your father to certain death-” _

_ A sob left her lips and she turned away from Maedhros, hiding her face in her hands. _

_ Holding back his own sorrow, he reached out and rested a hand on her shoulder. She turned around and wiped her cheeks before stepping towards him to wing her arms around him and tuck her head under Maedhros’ chin. He could still remember that in his youth, he was the one tucking his head under  _ her _ chin. _

_ “What have you seen, Ama?” he asked quietly. _

_ “You are all going to die,” she whispered into his shirt and her embrace grew a little tighter. Maedhros wrapped his arms around her to pull her closer, but it did nothing to make the sobs leaving her mouth any less heart-breaking. _

_ “But how?”  _

_ She gripped him tight enough to make breathing difficult. “Does it truly matter? Why can’t you just stop asking and  _ listen  _ to me for once, Maitimo?” She looked up at him, dark eyes glistening with tear. “I beg you. Do not go. All it will ever bring you is pain and suffering.” _

_ A tear slid down his cheek and fell into Nerdanel’s hair. His voice broke when he spoke. “I will have damned myself to the Void if I remain here, Ama.” _

_ She didn’t respond, burying herself in his embrace again instead. He let her, resting a cheek on the crown of her head with and wishing he never had to let go. In the end, it was Nerdanel who let go of him, and when she did, she was no longer crying. _

_ “Farewell, Maitimo.” She paused to caress his cheek. “I pray I get to see you again before the World fades away.” _

Biting his lower lip, Maedhros swallows a sob.

Nerdanel has never shared the extent of her foresight with anyone, and on sleepless nights in Beleriand, Maedhros had often lain awake and contemplated how much of what transpired had she seen. How much she knew.

Maedhros could never decide whether that was worse than the guilt.

Fire bursts through the crust of dried lava somewhere above him. A sound reminiscent of a scream fills the air and Maedhros wonder whether it is a warped echo or a memory.

_ “No!” _

_ The shriek was loud enough to cut through the groaning wood and crackling fires. It was Ambarussa, Maedhros could tell that much, and when Amras sped past him and towards a burning ship, his heart stopped. _

_ Celegorm caught Amras before he dove into the flames. _

_ “It’s Amrod!” he shrieked desperately, thrashing in Celegorm’s hold in an attempt to break free. He clawed at his arms and kicked at his knees, screaming as he did, “Let me go! Don’t let him burn! Save him!” _

_ Every time he took a breath, they could hear Amrod wailing in agony through the flames. But Fëanor remained unmoved even as the burnt hull collapsed onto itself and Amrod’s cries fell silent. _

_ Amras sagged in Celegorm’s hold and collapsed into a pitiful heap of despair at his feet. His screams were even worse than Amrod’s, but unlike his brothers, Maedhros didn’t cover his ears. They all deserved to hear them. _

_ And they all deserved to live with the fact that those were the last sounds they ever heard from him. _

A faint sense of irony worms into his thoughts as he continues up the mountainside. 

He notes that everything has become faint and distant ever since he and Maglor claimed the remaining Silmarils. With the Oath fulfilled, nothing seems to remain within him or hold any meaning. Time seems to hardly drag itself forward and only serves to deepen his detachment. 

There is ash on his tongue, lead weighing down his limbs, a void in the place where his fëa should reside. Nothing of what he once was remains. He tries to think back to when he first heard the words.

The volcano gurgles alluringly, inviting his further up its slope with black ash swaying around the crater in the still air. And then he remembers.

_ “Do you ever wonder how an oath such as yours works, Nelyafinwë?” _

_ The Lieutenant - or Gorthaur, as he later learned from the Sindar, for the creature itself dismissed his inquiry after its name - stood above him in his father’s guise and had the flames of its spirit not burned that much brighter than his father’s, Maedhros wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.  _

_ He almost never could. The Lieutenant plucked new disguises from his memories like ripe fruit, ranging from beasts Maedhros feared the most to the people he loved the deepest.  _

_ It could see into minds of others almost too easily, always perched in the shadow of one’s thoughts, cunning and patient like a predator. A nameless terror in the darkness, watching with unblinking eyes and smiling only to reveal its sharp teeth. _

_ “First, it nests in your spirit,” it said with a voice too captivating to be be ignored. The Lieutenant always spoke in a voice so mesmerizing that there was no other choice but to listen. And the horrors it called forth with well-chosen words seemed all the more petrifying.  _

_ “It digs a hole for itself and for a while, it sleeps. Perhaps it does not seem to be doing much, but it takes its time to fester, to spread its tendrils into the hidden folds of your mind until it infests your every thought.” _

_ The Lieutenant moved to sit on its heels in front of him and brushed its fingers against his cheek. “And then it starts taking, Nelyafinwë. Your wit. Your memories. Your emotions. Your enjoyment of good foods, drinks or company. Your resolve. Your will to live.” _

_ Satisfaction burned in its eyes as it regarded Maedhros with a warped image of Fëanor’s smile on its lips. “Every thing making you who you are will be claimed by your Oath until there is nothing left in you but it.” It paused with a smug expression. “And should it ever be fulfilled… all that you once was will fade away.” _

The echo of its wicked laughter resounds in the groaning of the volcano. Maedhros has grown so used to hearing it everywhere, he doesn’t even flinch. It has won, after all these years. Bit by bit, the cracks that the Lieutenant caused with his torment deepened and wormed their way through Maedhros only to make him crumble once the Oath was no longer there to hold him together.

Still, he carries on towards his destination up the treacherous slope. He would rather perish by his own doing than waste away lamenting on the shores like Maglor has chosen to, so he tightens his hold on the Silmaril and keeps climbing.

A gust of scorching wind blows against him and fills his eyes with tears.

_ Just like the strong gusts of wind Thorondor stirred with his mighty wings. They drew Maedhros out of his stupor but still gave him too little time to grasp Fingon’s intentions - Maedhros only saw the glimmer of his blade as it cut through the air and heard an apology. _

_ The warmth that gushed down his arm as he fell onto Thorondor’s back came as more of a surprise than the pain. _

_ Fingon untied his braids and used his golden ribbons to staunch the blood. And on the whole way back to Mithrim, he held Maedhros close and whispered soothing words into his ear to ease what he could from his anguish. _

_ He was the one to change his bandages, disperse his kin and curious soldiers gathering around Maedhros’ tent, spar with him for hours every day to train his left arm, kiss his scars and assure him of his beauty even when he felt like none would ever spare him a look again. _

_ It was Fingon, who shone like a beacon in the darkness, that made Maedhros believe there was more to his life than the Oath. _

“And then you died,” Maedhros whispers hoarsely.

He comes to a halt at the edge of a fiery chasm and looks down at the magma swirling beneath enticingly. The whole volcano seems to settle into a fleeting stillness, as if waiting for Maedhros to either leave or plunge into its waiting embrace.

Very briefly, Maedhros considers the former, but soon laughs at the thought.

There is nothing left for him here. His heart aches for the West, even though that may - and most likely will - equal spending the rest of his existence in the Halls of Mandos seeking forgiveness he might not receive. And yet he lets himself listen to a quiet voice saying redemption may not be as far away as if might seem.

It sounds suspiciously like Fingon used to.

With the faintest smile, Maedhros clutches the Silmaril to his breast and leaps into the chasm.


End file.
